If you don't consider yourself an audiophile there's a good chance you placed your speakers based on where they'd look best—and stick out the least—rather than where they sounded ideal. Follow some basic speaker placement rules to optimize your setup.

Pursuing the perfect speaker setup is a nearly endless chase but you can easily tweak your current setup to improve your system's sound without endless test sessions and absurd cable upgrades. At Wired's how-to wiki they've put together a checklist for making sure your setup doesn't fail some basic speaker placement principles. Among their tips is a warning to heed spacing between the speaker and the wall:

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Keep speakers between 2 to 3 feet away from the rear walls. This will sharpen the perceived image while ensuring that any bass does not muddy up the sound. If your speakers sound weak and bass-less, move them a little closer to the rear wall.

Check out the full article at the link below for more tips like the importance of anchoring your speakers, proper speaker height, and why you never want to stuff your speakers in a corner. Have your own tips, tricks, and speaker testing tracks to share? Let's hear about it in the comments.